Eight major non-profit organizations have canceled their contracts with Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort this past week.
Each of the organizations was scheduled to host a fundraiser on Trump’s property, events that would have given money to both Trump and the organizations.
Now the Red Cross, the Salvation Army, the Susan G. Komen Foundation, the Palm Beach Preservation Foundation, the Ryan Licht Sang Bipolar Foundation, Cleveland Clinic, the American Cancer Society, and the American Friends of Magen David Adom are all looking for other venues to host their events.
Most of the organizations released vague statements without direct references to Trump’s equivocal statements about white supremacists and neo-Nazis this past week. The American Cancer Society said that hosting an event on a Trump property was a “challenge” to its values. The Red Cross said in a statement that their event is “increasingly become a source of controversy and pain for many of our volunteers, employees and supporters.” And the Salvation Army pulled its annual Holiday Snow Ball from the venue, “because the conversation has shifted away from the purpose of this event.”
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A few, like Cleveland Clinic, pulled out quietly without releasing statements.
More cancellations may still happen. The board of Leaders in Furthering Education is considering canceling a Mar-a-Lago event. “The hatred, vitriol and anti-Semitic and racist views being spewed by neo-Nazis and white supremacists are repugnant and repulsive – and they are antithetical to everything that this country, and I personally stand for,” the organization’s president Lois Pope said.
While it’s nice that these organizations have decided not to give money to Trump now, don’t forget that until last week they were all comfortable with having events at Mar-a-Lago. The sleaziness of these charities giving money to a sitting president – and not even his campaign – is bad enough, but Trump himself made his beliefs on racism and diversity clear the day he launched his campaign by calling Mexicans “rapists.”
It’s not like event venues are scarce in Florida.
The Log Cabin Republicans, though, say that they are keeping their annual “Spirit of Lincoln” event at a Trump property in D.C. “The Trump Hotel gave us a very competitive deal,” LCR president Gregory T. Angelo told The Wrap.
Considering Trump expressed dismay on Tuesday that anyone would want to remove Confederate statues, the LCR should consider dropping all the “Party of Lincoln” rhetoric.
